Col du Galibier – day 16

28.7.2023 Friday

Les Grands Lacs – Col du Galibier

→ 29 km ↑ 1601 m ↓ 1818 m

We get up at 8am. We slept over 10 hours. No rush this morning. Today’s the last full day of walking ahead of us. Breakfast is leek soup, which is about 42% mashed potato, with added pasta. Dark clouds are gathering over the hills behind us. We’ve got no signal, so we can’t check the forecast. For now, it’s sunny where we are.

We set off at 9:20am. First we descend into the valley toward the Refuge du Terre Rouge hut. They’ve got a small hydroelectric plant there, so Jozef explains to me how hydroelectric plants work and what we have back in Slovakia. This comes up on our hikes all the time, since we usually pass powerplants somewhere along the way. One of these days it’ll actually stick.

There are plenty of marmots again today, so here’s the next chapter of yesterday’s marmot facts. They have 4 fingers on their front feet and 5 on their back ones, since they only dig with 4 fingers and the fifth gradually shrank away to nothing. Most of their burrows are dead ends, only about 1.5 m deep, and serve as quick hiding spots. Then they have their actual home, a whole system of tunnels — one main chamber for hibernating, another for going to the toilet, and in winter even a ventilation tunnel, since they seal off the main entrance. In winter they need snow as insulation, otherwise the frost would get into the burrow and they probably wouldn’t survive it. And they’ve got this funny whistle — whoever’s on lookout duty warns the rest of the group about danger. This kind of thing I remember instantly. We’re walking through a green valley, climbing toward the Pas des Griffes pass (2548 m). The other side is a complete contrast — rock and sharp peaks.

It’s 350 m down and 350 m up to the next pass. We descend a bit and stop for lunch — a baguette with salami and cheese, plus a pain au lait. I catch up on yesterday’s blog while Jozef calls a colleague. He tells us we’re crazy, though I don’t really see it that way myself. Jozef sometimes calls me a crazy woman too, though I take that as a compliment. We carry on toward the Col de la Plagnette pass (2525 m). The map shows us joining a cycling route, so we figure it’ll be a comfortable climb. We were quite wrong.

We can’t imagine who could actually cycle up terrain like this, given how much we’re struggling on foot. On top of that, some storm has clearly wreaked havoc here, leaving behind a channel full of washed-up rocks. Marmots are everywhere as always, and we stumble on a proper marmot battle. They don’t pay us any attention, so we film them. Once the fight’s over, we move on. We cross the pass and a view of lakes opens up ahead.

If we weren’t at 2500 m altitude, we’d go for a swim — the lakes look so inviting. It’s getting fairly late in the day now and we should probably pick up the pace a little.

First we wind down the switchbacks to Les Mottets, where we grab a coffee, and then comes today’s main event: Col du Galibier (2642 m), a mountain frequently featured on the Tour de France. We first try the orange trail that mapy.cz marks as the Trail du Galibier, but we simply cannot find it anywhere. It’s supposed to link up to a yellow trail marker, so we just follow the contour line in that general direction.

Once we join up with it, there’s a nice path. From here we can already see the busy paved road that runs up to Col du Galibier. The weather looks a bit uncertain, so I check the forecast. I switch off airplane mode and a text comes through — someone from ZKW, where I’d interviewed before we left, had tried calling me over an hour ago. I open my email right away and find out I’ve been offered the project cost estimator position, starting 1 August, if I want it. My phone starts ringing right then, I pick up, but the signal is genuinely terrible and the call drops. I find a spot on a rock and try again, and it’s better there.

So I accept the offer, and we’ll sort out the rest on Monday. Marmots whistle away somewhere in the background. It starts drizzling lightly, so I put on my rain jacket. We keep climbing, climbing gradually through the road’s switchbacks. Marmots everywhere, still. The final stretch is genuinely brutal, to the point where I start asking myself why I’m even doing this.

We finally make it to the top, and people give us odd looks — why on earth would we walk up here instead of driving like normal people. We take some photos and head over to the viewpoint.

We don’t have a specific spot picked out for the night, planning to just settle down somewhere on the way down. As we descend, a stunning view of the glaciers opens up. We find a decent enough spot — tall grass, but it’s got a bench.

We pitch the tent, Jozef cooks dinner, and I go for a very light wash-up. There’s a fairly cold wind blowing, so it’s not the most pleasant. This is our last night out here beyond civilization. For the past few days, you find yourself looking forward to the end of the trip — but once it actually arrives, you realize how great it’s been and that you’d honestly stay a bit longer.